特朗普真能被彈劾嗎

In publishing, it pays to have good timing. Just ask Cass Sunstein, the US legal scholar and prolific author. Some time ago, he decided to write a tome about impeachment in America. By chance, his Impeachment: A Citizen’s Guide was published on the very day that scandals around President Trump intensified.

在出版業，把握良機能帶來巨大收益。問問美國法律學者和多產作者卡斯?森斯坦(Cass Sunstein)就明白了。前段時間，他決定寫一部有關美國的彈劾的鉅著。他的《彈劾：公民指南》(Impeachment: A Citizen’s Guide)恰巧在圍繞着總統唐納德?特朗普(Donald Trump)的醜聞加劇的那一天出版。

More specifically, a few weeks ago, Robert Mueller, the former FBI boss who is investigating links between Trump’s team and Russia, indicted several key figures in Trump’s election campaign, including his former campaign manager, the lobbyist Paul Manafort.

具體而言，幾周前，正在調查特朗普團隊與俄羅斯關聯的聯邦調查局(FBI)前局長羅伯特?米勒(Robert Mueller)起訴了特朗普競選團隊中的幾個關鍵人物，包括特朗普前競選經理、遊說人士保羅?馬納福特(Paul Manafort)。

More sealed indictments against unnamed individuals are now sitting in the courthouse. As a result, the “i” word is being tossed around with fervour by Trump’s opponents; political betting sites such as Predict It put the chances of Trump being removed from office early at 38 per cent.

更多密封起訴書現在就躺在法院大樓之中，起訴對象是哪些人不得而知。因此，特朗普的反對者正在熱切地討論那個“i”開頭的詞（指彈劾(impeachment)——譯者注）；“Predict It”等政治博彩網站估測特朗普提前下臺的機率爲38%。

This is remarkable. But before anybody on the Democratic side gets too excited, they should take a look at Sunstein’s book. He does not claim to be commenting on Trump — the book does not even mention the president by name. But what it does do is explain the historical origins of the impeachment concept, and offer a checklist as to when the principle might be applied.

這個數字很驚人。但民主黨陣營別高興得太早——他們應該先看看森斯坦的書。森斯坦並沒有說這本書是在評論特朗普——書中甚至沒有提到這位總統的名字。但這本書的確解釋了彈劾這個概念的歷史淵源，並列出了在哪些情況下可能將彈劾原則付諸實施。

As Sunstein explains, the concept initially arose to solve a contradiction. Back in the late 18th century, the founding fathers wanted strong, unified leadership; however, they also wanted to prevent the kind of tyranny they had experienced under the British king. To square this circle, they gave considerable powers to the president, but also stipulated that a president could (and should) be removed if there was evidence of “high crimes and misdemeanours”.

森斯坦解釋道，彈劾這個概念最初是爲了解決一個矛盾。在18世紀末期，美國國父們希望建立強大和統一的領導；然而，他們也希望預防他們在英國國王統治下經歷過的那種暴政。爲了解決這個終極難題，他們賦予總統相當大的權力，但又規定如果有證據表明總統犯下“重罪和輕罪”，總統可以（且應該）被免職。

However, the founding fathers did not define “high crimes and misdemeanours” particularly clearly. And if you want to turn the term into law, you face the same kind of intellectual battle that plagues the Christian church over interpreting the Bible — namely, should the constitution be taken at face value, with every letter of 18th-century precepts applied to 21st-century life? Or should it be seen as a “living document” that needs to be adapted to the modern world? Unsurprisingly, the views of modern legal scholars have diverged. The late Justice Thurgood Marshall fell into the living document camp. Antonin Scalia, a member of the Supreme Court until his death last year, believed that a constitution only works if it is taken literally.

然而，國父們並沒有特別清楚地定義“重罪和輕罪”。如果你想把這個詞寫入法律，你將面臨着在詮釋《聖經》這個問題上困擾基督教的那種思想之爭，即：是應該按照憲法的字面含義來理解它、原原本本地把18世紀的條文應用到21世紀的生活之中，還是應該把憲法當做一份“活的文件”、需要適應現代世界作出相應調整？毫不奇怪，對於這個問題，現代法律學者無法形成統一的觀點。已故的大法官瑟古德?馬歇爾(Thurgood Marshall)是“活文件”一派。去年去世的最高法院法官安東寧?斯卡利亞(Antonin Scalia)生前一直認爲，只有從字面上理解憲法，它才能發揮作用。

Of course, some cases are clear-cut: as Sunstein explains, a president cannot be impeached if he (or she) has “merely” evaded taxes, pursued wildly unpopular policies, engaged in sexual scandal or embarked on wars. Conversely, they can be impeached if they engage in high treason, accept bribes in office, or use the security apparatus to discredit their opponents and cover up the evidence. “Efforts to engage the CIA to prevent disclosure of wrongdoing by the President’s campaign committee is unquestionably a misdemeanour in the constitutional sense,” writes Sunstein. This latter point is particularly important, since this was the “misdemeanour” that led to Richard Nixon being impeached after the Watergate scandals. But the key point is that committing a crime is not necessarily enough to justify impeachment — and not everything that would spark impeachment is illegal.

當然，有些情況非常明確：正如森斯坦解釋的，美國總統不能“僅僅”因爲逃稅、推行普遍不受歡迎的政策、牽涉性醜聞或者發動戰爭而受到彈劾。相反，如果犯下嚴重的叛國罪、收受賄賂或者利用安全機構詆譭對手並掩藏證據，他們可以受到彈劾。森斯坦寫道：“從憲法的角度看，試圖動用中情局(CIA)來阻止總統競選委員會的不當行爲被披露，無疑是一種輕罪。”後一點尤爲重要，因爲正是這種“輕罪”導致理查德?尼克松(Richard Nixon)在水門事件後被彈劾。但關鍵是，犯罪並不足以證明彈劾的正當性——而且並非所有可以引發彈劾的行爲都是非法的。

However, as Sunstein observes, this still leaves a huge “grey area” where it is not entirely clear whether an activity is impeachable or not. This is not necessarily bad. The whole point about the impeachment principle is that it is so difficult to apply that it will not be widely used — yet sufficiently broad in its scope that it can have a deterrent effect. “We, the people, can out a president if we wish, but we have to run the gauntlet,” Sunstein notes.

然而，正如森斯坦所言，這仍留下了一個巨大的“灰色地帶”，在這裏，一項行爲是否足以導致彈劾並不完全清楚。這並不一定是壞事。彈劾原則的全部意義就在於，它實施起來如此困難，以至於不會被廣泛使用——但其涵蓋的範圍又足夠廣，因此可以起到威懾作用。森斯坦指出：“如果我們——也就是人民——想的話，我們可以把一位總統轟下臺，但這個過程要費盡艱難險阻。”

The problem with this “grey area” is that there is scope for politicisation in terms of how impeachment is applied, and this creates two dangers. One is that “a combination of extreme partisanship, rapid spread of false information and various behaviour biases” will spark unjustified efforts to impeach a president. The other is that party loyalties overwhelm any sense of constitutional law and Congress refuses to impeach a president when it is actually justified. As Sunstein observes, “History suggests that Republicans will be exceedingly reluctant to abandon a Republican president, and Democrats are no different. Conviction is essentially impossible unless the country is nearly unified against its leader.”

這個“灰色地帶”的問題在於，彈劾如何運用有可能受到政治因素影響，這造成了兩大危險。一是，“極端的黨派鬥爭、虛假信息的快速傳播和各種行爲偏誤的結合”將引發對總統的不正當彈劾。二是，對政黨的忠誠導致憲法條文被完全無視，國會拒絕對總統的正當彈劾。正如森斯坦所言，“歷史表明，共和黨極不情願放棄共和黨總統，而民主黨也不例外。除非這個國家幾乎一致反對這位總統，否則說服國會基本上不可能。”

Where does this leave Trump? Right now, nobody knows. Mueller has not produced any evidence of presidential wrongdoing to date and may never do so; meanwhile, many Trump supporters insist that the whole saga is simply fake news, driven by political partisanship. But if evidence of wrongdoing does emerge, Democrats will almost certainly try to activate that “i” word. Either way, things are likely to get messy — and be overwhelmed by precisely the type of political partisanship that Sunstein worries about. Now, more than ever, cool heads are needed to safeguard the US Republic: thank goodness for this book — and its handy impeachment checklist.

那麼就特朗普而言，情況如何？目前沒有人知道。米勒迄今沒有拿出任何證明總統有不當行爲的證據，或許永遠也拿不出；與此同時，特朗普的許多支持者堅信，整個事件只是由黨派鬥爭驅動的假新聞。但如果不當行爲的證據真的出現了，民主黨幾乎肯定會設法啓動彈劾。不管怎樣，局勢很可能會變得難看，會恰恰被森斯坦所擔心的那種黨派鬥爭所主導。如今比以往任何時候都更需要冷靜的頭腦來保衛美國共和國：謝天謝地，我們有了這本書和書中列出的有用的彈劾適用場景清單。